Khopesh Vs. Scimitars/rapiers

[Krag]

Another question is:
How early can you get WP:Khopesh?

[Adrian99]

...

TWF Banishing rapiers with IC: Pierce and a bloodstone for lols in Vale.

...

You can't begin to touch that with TWF khopeshes. Indeed nothing can touch it in that set of quests. Situationally, there's usually something better than TWF khopesh. THF utterly smokes any TWF below level 11 or so, khopesh or not.

I don't disagree with you, but I think it's unfair to use this as an example of why khopesh isn't the best overall TWF weapon. Most of your response is about the advantage of situational weapons, and yes the advantage is huge, but that's orthogonal to the issue of the best overall TWF weapon. How could any weapon compete situationally with dual smiting scimitars or banishing rapiers?

[whomhead]

Another question is:
How early can you get WP:Khopesh?

At character creation, if you're making a pure Paladin.

[Warinx]

get keen banishers and use scimitar smiters, then drop IC Piercing so you can use Lit2 khopesh to full advantage.

[Ilundel]

The math is complicated and very situationnal. Simply because one weapon can be better then the other in any number of situation depending on what buffs affect which weapon and if you can crit or not, or always crit, etc...

As a baseline, if both weapon had the same to hit and base damage including buffs (and no burst effect), it would boils down to this:

A crit 15-20 X2 weapon will do 13 regular hits, 6 crit hits at X2 and 1 miss out of 20 rolls assuming you only miss on a 1. Total of 13 + 12 (25) out of 20 for 1.25 base damage as total damage output.

A crit 17-20 X3 weapon will do 15 regular hits, 4 crit hits at X3 and 1 miss out of 20 rolls assuming you only miss on a 1. Total of 15 + 12 (27) out of 20 for 1.35 base damage as total damage output.

[Krag]

At character creation, if you're making a pure Paladin.

Funny. Some people might even think that taking WP at creation would be a good idea.

[yawumpus]

Funny. Some people might even think that taking WP at creation would be a good idea.

Not any more so than building up TWF feats and using THF until they are good enough. The important thing about khopesh is to have it ready before imp. crit. slashing.

[Kinerd]

TWF paladins can use Scimitars at Character Creation, whereas Khopesh require an extra feat.

You can use khopeshes without having the feat. This is especially relevant for paladins, who as you have noted do not have a lot of wiggle room in feat selection.

Experience in actual game play buries it.

Would you say that your actual game play is mostly restricted to end-game and epic situations?

[transtemporal]

You want to talk about overpowered?

TWF Banishing rapiers with IC: Pierce and a bloodstone for lols in Vale.

Pfft. My +1 flaming burst icy burst khopesh ml2 rr wf is overpowered in waterworks too. Whats your point?

[kernal42]

Thanks!

This post sums up exactly why I am skeptical toward even grabbing the khopesh feat.

Paladin abilities can increase the crit multiplier btw for those of you arguing against scimitars. If the paladin were to use exalted smite, that crit multiplier now rivals a khopesh with the 30% chance to crit. Exalted smite takes the scimitar/rapier's crit multiplier to x4, and when you're fighting against critable bosses (like Harry for example), spamming exalted smite in combination with Div sacrifice results in good DPS.. perhaps better than what Khopesh can offer because the weapons are critting more.

Ish. Remember that you'd be increasing the khopesh crit multiplier as well. Your scimitars become 15-20/x4, and the khopeshs are 17-20/x5. That gives the scimitars a crit power of 18, and khopesh power of 16. This puts scimitar ahead by 2, which is the same amount khopeshs are normally ahead by. So scimitar will win if half or more of your attacks are smites, which is not the case. Again, khopesh will win in dps. The question is whether or not it's worth the feat investment.

Cheers,
Kernal

[Junts]

completely wrong.
the more damage u do on a base hit the more scimitar gets boosted. the problem is, as soon as scimitar gets actually "better", ur in the zone of base damage no character can physically hit yet.
when level cap rises and base damage gets boosted scimitars will become the new overpowered weapon.
until that time khopesh all the way. dwarven axe is also decent and look awesome.

This is incorrect; Khopeshes multiply base damage increases by more overall than any other weapon (except the epic sword of shadow and epic xuum) due to their critical profile.

While specific paladin abilities gain slightly more benefit from rapiers or scimitars than they do from khopeshes, the difference is minute and it isn't enough to make up the raw advantage the Khopesh has over weapons on regular attacks. While the Khopesh may be the best weapon for a fighter or barbarian by 7-9%, its 'only' the best weapon for a paladin by 5-6%. However, it's still the best, and 5% is a ton on DDO.

There's pretty much always a feat you can afford to drop for it. About the only characters who really can't pull it off are drow or elven paladins, who already have the -2 con working against them as well and in general aren't nearly as strong as human builds (and the AP for racial rapier/scimitar enhancements is extremely hard to afford). Generally, people considering an elf or drow paladin build would be better off using a human with khopesh instead.

If you already rolled an elf or drow, you might be stuck with inferior weaponry, and if you can afford the AP you can close that gap a little more with racials, especially racial to-hit benefits in epic (on the other hand, by using a x2 crit weapon in epic, you pretty much completely nerf yourself into irrelevance, so the to-hit issue in epic isn't actually an advantage: if you're not a khopesh user, you better be using heavy picks in epic or its time to reroll).

[Maelphistez]

So, this is an interesting question that comes up again and again and again... We recently had this discussion in our guild forums in regards to a specific build. Let me start off by saying straight out, when considering mobs with zero fort, the khopesh is the hands down DPS king. This includes considerations of "on crit" effects which cause damage, but excludes insta-kills such as banish/smite. This changes as fortification increases until at heavy (100%) fort, the DPS leaders are anything with the highest base damage die (B-swords and D-Axes).

So, accepting those numbers moves us into a more interesting space. Given that khopesh is king, what's next? Guess what... rapiers and scimitars are not "all that and a bag of chips". There is a widely overlooked weapon that is exactly equal in crit profile to the rapiers and scimitars: the heavy pick. Because for me images always speak louder than words, I've made this spreadsheet to illustrate the point.

Assumptions: 1 always misses, 2-20 always hit, crits are always backed up.

Result? Khopeshes are roughly 10% ahead of the others considered, but heavy picks are exactly equal to rapiers and scimitars. The only time rapiers and scimitars pull ahead are when using insta-kills.

Conclusion: When feat short, consider using any of heavy pick/rapier/scimitar because they have exactly the same damage profile but remember that you will always be giving up roughly 10% DPS over spending the feat and taking Khopesh.

Edit: Before I am overwhelmed... I have left out specific weapons (ie: the Nicked Scimitar which has a d8 base rather than a d6) to make the discussion more general. And, the 10% number comes at the extreme ends of the scale and excludes the naked weapons without IC multipliers.

[AylinIsAwesome]

I know, I know "Khopesh's have better base damage than scimitars/rapiers on enemies that can't be critted".

But here is an interesting conundrum:

TWF paladins can use Scimitars at Character Creation, whereas Khopesh require an extra feat. The thing is, paladins don't get any extra feats at all while leveling up (unlike fighters), and trying to build a pure TWF DPS paladin for the Capstone powers will have the weapon-related feats take up virtually all the feat slots except for one (which presumably must belong to Toughness if you want a character that doesn't die if a pit fiend so much as sneezes on you).

TWF
ITWF
GTWF
Improved Critical
Toughness
Khopesh Proficiency
Power Attack

Add Extend for a Human.

How is it impossible to fit in the feat?

With the Improved Critical Slashing feat, a Khopesh has 20% chance to crit with a x3 multiplier. However, rapiers and scimitars would have a 30% chance to crit, which is huge if you're a twf. Against mobs that cannot suffer critical hits (and do note that their kind are relatively rare compared to most of the mobs you face in the game... with exception to the golems), it would make more sense to either use a two-handed weapon, or switch to longswords/battle-axes.

Khopeshes are crit power 8.

Rapiers and Scimitars are crit power 6.

That's huge for a TWF melee.

That being said, a burst weapon (especially an elemental burst weapon + Risia burst) is likely to do more damage in the long run when scimitars are used than when Khopesh's are used. This especially true if you have greater two weapon fighting which makes off-hand attacks 80% likely to occur.

This is factually incorrect.

Rapier/Scimitar:

.95 * 3.5 + .3 * 5.5 = 4.975

Khopesh:

.95 * 3.5 + .2 * 5.5 * 2 = 5.525


Burst effects have greater effect on weapons with a higher critical multiplier.

So I ask, why do Paladins *NEED* to use/have Khopesh weapons (and lets' face it, I haven't been very impressed with most of the epic weapons out there; the best epic weapons appear to be the Two-handed weapons that paladins don't need to waste a feat for).

So...you're not impressed with Epic Chaosblade? o_O

[k1ngp1n]

Result? Khopeshes are roughly 10% ahead of the others considered, but heavy picks are exactly equal to rapiers and scimitars. The only time rapiers and scimitars pull ahead are when using insta-kills.

While most of your post is correct, and generally well known - I'd like to make one distinction that is often not handled: scimitars and rapiers will do more damage to a non-autocrit mob than heavy picks provided the user has a seeker effect.

This is a pretty small increase - equivalent to 0.2 damage/swing * seeker mod. So a epic maralith chain wearing rapier user will have 2 damage a swing more than the heavy pick user vs. a 0 fort, non-autocrit mob.

[Junts]

Funny. Some people might even think that taking WP at creation would be a good idea.

I often take Khopesh at level 1 or 2; especially on a paladin, most of your feats from level 6 and up are afflicted with assorted BAB requirements and/or char level requirements for metamagics. Your metamagics + itwf/imp crit/gtwf all have to come from level 6 or later. Taking Khopesh at 1 or 3 is consequently a pretty logical decision (on twf builds, I'd lean towards 3: toughness+twf, then khopesh, then itwf, imp crit, gtwf, and then you have PA and a metamagic slot near the end).

Frankly, Khopesh is a better feat from levels 1-6 than power attack is.

[Junts]

TWF
ITWF
GTWF
Improved Critical
Toughness
Khopesh Proficiency
Power Attack

Add Extend for a Human.

How is it impossible to fit in the feat?



Khopeshes are crit power 8.

Rapiers and Scimitars are crit power 6.

That's huge for a TWF melee.



This is factually incorrect.

Rapier/Scimitar:

.95 * 3.5 + .3 * 5.5 = 4.975

Khopesh:

.95 * 3.5 + .2 * 5.5 * 2 = 5.525


Burst effects have greater effect on weapons with a higher critical multiplier.



So...you're not impressed with Epic Chaosblade? o_O

An important point:

1d10 (elemental) bursts are indeed superior on a higher multiplier weapon (you get 6d10 from icy burst on a rapier, and 8d10 from a khopesh).

On the other hand, the align bursts (holy anarchic etc) are actaully better on rapiers than any other weapon. You'll get 16d6 of burst on a Khopesh per 20 swings, but 18d6 off a rapier.

The difference in both cases is minute and not enough to swing the difference in weapon performance overall.

[GBantaR]

That being said, a burst weapon (especially an elemental burst weapon + Risia burst) is likely to do more damage in the long run when scimitars are used than when Khopesh's are used. This especially true if you have greater two weapon fighting which makes off-hand attacks 80% likely to occur.

LIES!

Actually this is not true because bursting weapons do more damage with higher multiplier weapons. Can't remember exactly right now but it's something like 2D8 for an x2 multiplier and 3D8 for a x3 multiplier. That's a pretty big difference and though the Khopesh crits SOMEWHAT less often, it will burst for much more.

[k1ngp1n]

LIES!

Actually this is not true because bursting weapons do more damage with higher multiplier weapons. Can't remember exactly right now but it's something like 2D8 for an x2 multiplier and 3D8 for a x3 multiplier. That's a pretty big difference and though the Khopesh crits SOMEWHAT less often, it will burst for much more.

*Sigh* Here is a screenie of an alignment burst scimitar, with the numbers:



Recalculate very carefully, and try that again. Hint: Junts is right.

[Maelphistez]

While most of your post is correct, and generally well known - I'd like to make one distinction that is often not handled: scimitars and rapiers will do more damage to a non-autocrit mob than heavy picks provided the user has a seeker effect.

This is a pretty small increase - equivalent to 0.2 damage/swing * seeker mod. So a epic maralith chain wearing rapier user will have 2 damage a swing more than the heavy pick user vs. a 0 fort, non-autocrit mob.

Ok k1ngp1n, thank you for the back-handed "correct, and generally well known" compliment. And, you've caught me a bit by surprise with the 0.2 damage/swing argument. I didn't actually sit down and do the math, so I didn't catch that a bonus only on the criticals would indeed represent a slight increase to DPS favoring the rapier/scimitar (base 3 criticals in 20 for a x2 = factor 6 vs 1 critical in 20 for a x4 = factor 4). Good catch there. +1 rep if my grenis wasn't so small.

[AylinIsAwesome]

An important point:

1d10 (elemental) bursts are indeed superior on a higher multiplier weapon (you get 6d10 from icy burst on a rapier, and 8d10 from a khopesh).

On the other hand, the align bursts (holy anarchic etc) are actaully better on rapiers than any other weapon. You'll get 16d6 of burst on a Khopesh per 20 swings, but 18d6 off a rapier.

The difference in both cases is minute and not enough to swing the difference in weapon performance overall.

Ahh, that's true.

I was specifically commenting on elemental bursts since that was the example given by the OP. I hadn't checked alignment bursts.


I'll compare a Holy Rapier to a Holy Khopesh then. 34 STR isn't that hard to reach, so I'll use that. Divine Might 4 and a Bloodstone as well. Leaving out KotC effects since not every Paladin is KotC, not every mob is an EO, and the damage from the PrE would cancel out when comparing them anyway.

Holy Sword (Rapier):
.95 * 3.5 * 2 + .65 * (3.5 + 5 + 12 + 3 + 8 + 5) + .3 * 2 * (3.5 + 5 + 12 + 8 + 3 + 5 + 6) + .3 * 3.5 * 3
6.65 + 23.725 + 25.5 + 3.15
59.025

Holy Sword (Khopesh):
.95 * 3.5 * 2 + .75 * (4.5 + 5 + 12 + 3 + 8 + 5) + .2 * 3 * (4.5 + 5 + 12 + 8 + 3 + 5 + 6) + .2 * 3.5 * 4
6.65 + 28.125 + 26.1 + 2.8
63.675


So the only thing that Rapier does better than Khopesh is the alignment burst, and everything else Khopesh either ties or beats Rapier.